


i just can't wait for love to destroy us

by Nutella_enthusiast



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Anger Management, Canonical Character Death, Dom/sub Undertones, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-24
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-11 01:25:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4415711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nutella_enthusiast/pseuds/Nutella_enthusiast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tybalt is hungry. He doesn't know what for, but there is a painful emptiness that's been gnawing at his gut for years, an emptiness that nothing has filled but drinking, fighting and fucking.</p><p>He would say that it's always been there if he were being completely honest with himself, but that's not something that Tybalt's in the habit of doing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [teenagedenigma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenagedenigma/gifts).



> fun fact Romeo and Juliet is _even more_ painful if u imagine Mercutio and Tybalt used to date
> 
> Title from flawless by the neighbourhood

Tybalt is hungry. He doesn't know what for, but there is a painful emptiness that's been gnawing at his gut for years, an emptiness that nothing has filled but drinking, fighting and fucking.

He would say that it's always been there if he were being completely honest with himself, but that's not something that Tybalt's in the habit of doing. It had gotten better for almost a year, before things had fallen apart again, but he's not going to admit that either, or that after that, it's started getting worse than it ever was before. He's not going to give Mercutio bloody d'Escalus the satisfaction. 

Tybalt's self destructive tendencies were far from secret, even from those who barely knew him. He had a constellation of scars spanning across his upper body from brawling and sword fighting, and another, more organized collection across his forearms and upper thighs that only one other person had ever seen. Mercutio had never asked for any sort of explanation for them, and Tybalt had never offered, but sometimes late at night, when Tybalt couldn't sleep, Mercutio would run his fingers along them, pressing feather light kisses to them one by one until Tybalt's eyes finally shut.

Mercutio never mentioned it in the morning, and in exchange, Tybalt didn't mention Mercutio's feelings for Romeo. He had known from the beginning that Mercutio didn't love him in the way he loved Romeo - the way he had _always_ loved Romeo - but what they had was almost enough that Tybalt could keep his mouth shut and pretend that he did.

He shouldn't be surprised when he manages to fuck it all up while he still has Mercutio's cock in his mouth and his hands tied behind his back. Mercutio has one hand carded through Tybalt's hair and his eyes shut tight when Tybalt starts to feel the familiar anger rising in his chest.

"Look at me," he snaps, biting ferociously at Mercutio's thigh, hard enough to leave an angry red mark. "Or were you pretending I was Montague instead?" He spits the name out like a curse, and Mercutio's eyes shoot open as if Tybalt had hit him.

"Don't be disgusting." Mercutio's voice is low, his eyes dark. "Benvolio's not even thirteen."

Tybalt knows what Mercutio is giving him. He has never been offered a second chance before, but it isn't hard for him to recognize it for what it is. He knows Mercutio is only doing it because he feels sorry for him - _silly little Capulet, having another one of his fits_ \- and he doesn't like it.

"You know what I mean," he snaps. "Romeo - the dog, the scoundrel, your only, _dearest_ lo-"

Mercutio really does hit him then, hard enough that Tybalt tastes blood in his mouth and falls to the ground, unable to catch himself. By the time he manages to sit up, Mercutio has stood from his perch on the edge of Tybalt's bed and pulled up his trousers. He's looking down at Tybalt, his face a twisted mixture of disgust and sadness. Tybalt is quick to school his features into his carefully perfected cold glare, free of all emotion, and daring Mercutio to challenge him. When he doesn't, Tybalt continues.

"You think I haven't notice the way you stare at him at your uncle's parties?" he asks, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the carpet beside him. "The way you talk about him? The way you whisper his name in your sleep?"

Mercutio, for what is possibly the first time in his life, is speechless. "I'm not-" he starts, his voice tiny and broken sounding. "Not anymore."

Tybalt just snorts and keeps talking, all his frustrations, his angers, his jealousies of the last year spilling out of him all at once. "Tell me, how long have you been in love with him? Have you told him? Or are you still hoping that he'll just realize one day that you're the only one for him?"

"Careful, boy," warns Mercutio, but it's too late.

"Do you think he's going to marry you?" spits Tybalt, laughing bitterly. "Make you his wife - the bitch of the dog of Montague?"

Mercutio isn't wearing shoes, so the kick to Tybalt's stomach doesn't hurt as badly as it could, but it's still enough to make him double over again.

"Go!" he shouts as Mercutio storms out the door. "Dream of love from Romeo, you'll get no more from me!" Mercutio's footsteps falter as he crosses the doorway out of Tybalt's chambers, but he doesn't look back.

Juliet finds him like that nearly an hour later when she's sent to bring him to up dinner, his face crusted with dried blood and tears, and his hands still bound behind his back with Mercutio's belt. It's clear she doesn't believe him when he tells her he's fine, but he wouldn't have believed himself either. Even so, she helps him clean himself up, and tells her father and mother that he's feeling poorly and won't be making it to dinner that night. After all, they're throwing a party in a few days, and it just wouldn't do for Tybalt to be ill for that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know blowjob wasn't a term they used at this time but the pun was too good sorry not sorry

“The fee simple! O simple!”

Tybalt should know that nothing good will come from the rest of his day when hears the voice, even before he sees its owner. He shouldn’t even be out on a day like this, with the temperature far past hot and bordering on hellish, and an alarming band of black clouds forming on the horizon. He’s strangely calmed by the sound of thunder and pounding rain though, and he was sure that he couldn’t have possibly bared spending another moment alone in his chambers, staring through the window that he had watched Mercutio climb through more nights than he could count. He shouldn’t be surprised that his attempt at escaping his old memories had brought him straight to the subject of them. 

He thinks for a moment that if he had any common sense he would turn another way and avoid Mercutio completely.

Tybalt is many things though, but sensible has never been one of them. So he approaches the two boys, sitting together at a shaded table in front of a tavern that hasn’t even opened for the day yet, and lets the familiar hunger and rage rise up inside him.

It’s not even been a week since Tybalt last saw Mercutio, but even so, something about him seems changed. There is less glow to his skin, less showiness to his clothes, less brightness in his eyes, which Tybalt realizes belatedly are focused on him. He stares back, refusing to be the first to break eye contact. A feeling, even stronger than the hunger gnawing at his stomach, rises up in him, and urge, almost a need to close the gap between them, to pull Mercutio from his seat and kiss him until they’re both breathless, until he’s managed to get across every feeling, every bit of hurt and anger and hopelessness that he’s been feeling for the last five days. He pushes it down, pretends he doesn’t notice the way Mercutio’s hands are shaking ever so slightly, giving away the emotions he’d never dare voice with this many people around, especially now, now that Tybalt has ruined everything.

“By my head, here comes the Capulets,” says Benvolio, his voice high and still unchanged by his years, but much steadier than Tybalt could hope for his own to be. Mercutio jerks his gaze back to Benvolio with a scoff, and Tybalt tries not to think about the fact that Mercutio has never given in to anything that easily, even something as unimportant as being the first one to break eye contact. It had taken almost six months of whatever it was that they had been doing before he even considered letting Tybalt fuck him.

“By my heel, I care not.” Tybalt knows Mercutio’s voice better than his own, knows how to read every one of his emotions in the most unrelated statements, and he knows that Mercutio cares far more than he’s willing to admit. Even so, he pretends he doesn’t.

“Follow me close,” he tells his man. “For I will speak to them.” He turns to Benvolio, who is eyeing them warily, and Mercutio, who is refusing to look at them at all, his gaze instead glued to the ground in front of him. “Gentlemen, good e'en. A word with one of you.”

Mercutio snorts. “And but one word with one of us? Couple it with something; make it a word and a blow.”

Tybalt knows this game well. Mercutio plays it at every chance he gets, at the prince’s parties, when they run into each other in the streets, when he’s invited to dinner with the Capulets. He knows just how to make it clear to Tybalt exactly what he wants without anyone else noticing. Tybalt’s never been as good with his tongue as Mercutio - at least not in that way - but he can always keep up with Mercutio at this. There’s a bitterness to Mercutio’s voice now, but if Tybalt tries hard enough, he can ignore it, and pretend that this is the same game they’ve been playing all year.

“You shall find me apt enough to that, sir,” he says. “An you will give me occasion.”

“Could you not take some occasion without giving?” asks Mercutio, getting to his feet and giving Tybalt an up and down glance so quick that he almost misses it. 

Tybalt wants desperately to keep the game up, to keep pretending that nothing has changed between them, but the rage is rising up inside him again, the frustration that Mercutio will never feel for Tybalt what he feels for Romeo Montague of all people, and he lets the words out before he can stop himself. “Mercutio, thou consort'st with Romeo,--”

Mercutio cuts him off with a laugh that’s more than a little hysterical. “Consort! What, dost thou make us minstrels? An thou make minstrels of us, look to hear nothing but discords: here's my fiddlestick; here's that shall make you dance. 'Zounds, consort!” He draws his sword and waves it at Tybalt with a sharp grin, a wicked fire glowing in his eyes that Tybalt has only seen once before, when Mercutio snuck into his chambers for the first time, after weeks of “consorting” only in dark alleys and back rooms of pubs - places that were dark and private where they didn’t have to look at each other, didn’t have to worry about being found. His face and clothes had been splattered with blood, and he whispered his story to Tybalt, his voice shaking, about the man who’d tried to rob him on his way home from the tavern, the feeling of his skin under Mercutio’s knife when he’d had no other choice to stop him. He told Tybalt about his fear of being caught, having to be put to death by his own uncle, and although he didn’t say it, the fire dancing in his eyes told Tybalt of his biggest fear - the fear that he had enjoyed it.

The fire hadn’t frightened Tybalt then, but now that it’s directed at him, he’s terrified, more scared now of Mercutio than he’s been of anything else in his life, except for maybe himself when he falls into one of his rages. By the look on Benvolio’s face, he feels the same.

“We talk here in the public haunt of men: either withdraw unto some private place, and reason coldly of your grievances, or else depart; here all eyes gaze on us,” says Benvolio, and Tybalt feels a sick sense of elation that his voice is finally shaking too.

Tybalt wonders if Benvolio knows about him and Mercutio.

“Men's eyes were made to look, and let them gaze,” says Mercutio with another wild laugh. “I will not budge for no man's pleasure, I.”

Tybalt scoffs and steps aside as he sees Romeo approaching them warily over Mercutio’s shoulder. “Well, peace be with you, sir: here comes my man.”

Mercutio looks around and locks eyes with Romeo. Something passes between them, something that Tybalt doesn't quite understand, and doesn't really want to think about.

"But I'll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery," says Mercutio, before finally turning back to look at Tybalt. "Marry, go before to field, he'll be your follower; your worship in that sense may call him 'man.'"

Tybalt ignores him and turns to Romeo. "Romeo, the hate I bear thee can afford no better term than this - thou art a villain."

"Tybalt, the reason that I have to love thee doth much excuse the appertaining rage to such a greeting. Villain am I none; therefore farewell; I see thou know'st me not." Romeo actually turns around to leave, as if he hadn't just mocked Tybalt for sending Mercutio right into his waiting arms. He starts to walk away, but Tybalt is faster, grabbing Romeo by the arm and holding him in place.

"Boy, this shall not excuse the injuries that thou hast done me," he hisses in Romeo's ear. "Therefore turn-" he releases his grip on Romeo's arm and pushes him away from him "-and draw."

"I do protest, I never injured thee, but love thee better than thou canst devise, till thou shalt know the reason of my love: and so, good Capulet,--which name I tender as dearly as my own,--be satisfied."

Tybalt snarls and reaches for his own sword, but Mercutio steps between them, as quick and fluid as he'd dropped to his knees not a week before. "O calm, dishonourable, vile submission! Alla stoccata carries it away." He points his sword directly at Tybalt's chest, a clear challenge. "Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?"

"What wouldst thou have with me?"

"Good king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives," says Mercutio with a laugh and a mocking bow. "That I mean to make bold withal, and as you shall use me hereafter, drybeat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pitcher by the ears?" Tybalt does not move, and Mercutio waves his sword again, gesturing at Tybalt's. "Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out."

"I am for you," says Tybalt, drawing his sword too. He wishes that weren't so true, that he weren't for Mercutio and no one else.

Romeo says something, but all Tybalt can focus on is Mercutio, his pink lips, his high cheekbones, his dark eyes, still burning with that same terrifying fire.

"Come, sir," says Mercutio, flashing Tybalt a wild grin and taking a step forward. "Your passado."

Mercutio swings first, but Tybalt is close behind, parrying his strike with expert skill and striking back. He has strength on his side, but Mercutio has trained with the prince himself, and as much as Tybalt hates to admit anyone is better than him at anything, Mercutio might have the upper hand where skill is concerned.

Overall, they're fairly evenly matched though, and their fight continues. Even as a small crowd gathers around them, even as Romeo shouts at them to stop, Tybalt's focus is solely on Mercutio, and that, in the end, is the reason it comes to an end.

The strike is clean, basic, one of the first thrusts Tybalt was taught when he was learning how to handle a sword. He knows at least three ways to block it, and many more to dodge it, and he knows Mercutio does too. It's not even a strike that could kill, except against the most unskilled and unintelligent opponents, of which Mercutio is neither. At worst, it should cut him badly enough to make him whine and complain for a week or two, and then forget about it completely. It’s then though, that Romeo leaps between them, and Mercutio, in an attempt to get around Romeo, moves the wrong way.

Tybalt watches in horror as his blade sinks deep into Mercutio's side, just under his ribs, blood blossoming out immediately and staining his white shirt. He wants to say something, anything, but his tongue is all tied up, his stomach in his throat. He'd been angry, but never that angry, angry enough to hurt the only person besides Juliet that he's ever been sure he loves. He may hate Mercutio most of the time, but that doesn't mean he doesn't love him too.

The look of pain and betrayal on Mercutio's face is more than Tybalt can stand, and without another word, he pulls his sword away and runs, past the pub and around the back to the alley, sinking to his knees. His stomach rolls unpleasantly, and he heaves violently, emptying its contents onto the uneven cobblestones beneath him, bracing himself up on his hands. He ignores the ache in his back and his arms, the pebbles digging into his palms and knees, as his stomach contracts, again and again, his body shaking until there's nothing left in his stomach and all he can taste is bitter acid in the back of his throat. Finally, knees weak, he forces himself back to his feet, impatiently wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. He can feel his man standing behind him, staring at him, wondering what's going on, but he has the good sense not to ask, and Tybalt doesn't offer to explain. He brushes past him instead, back towards where he knows Romeo is waiting for him.

Benvolio is kneeling with Mercutio in the shade under the wall of the tavern, Mercutio’s head resting on the ground just in front of his knees, blood staining both of their hands. Tybalt almost laughs at the fact that of the three of them, his are the only hands that are still clean.

He doesn’t laugh though, he kneels beside them, ignoring the look that Benvolio shoots him, equal parts confused and horrified.

“Mercutio,” whispers Tybalt, and in that moment, there is only the two of them. All he can focus on is Mercutio’s face, skin paler than Tybalt has ever seen it, hair soaked with sweat. There’s a streak of blood across his chin, smeared down from the corner of his mouth, and Tybalt almost reaches down to wipe it away before he thinks better of it. “Love,” he whispers instead, his voice even lower, so only Mercutio and Benvolio can hear him. Benvolio sucks in a sharp breath, but they both ignore him.

Mercutio stares up at Tybalt through his eyelashes, his mouth just barely hanging open. “A plague o’ both your houses,” he finally rasps out, turning his head to the side and spitting out a mouthful of blood onto Tybalt’s hand where it is braced beside him on the ground. “A plague o’ both your houses,” he mutters again, almost to himself. He takes one last, shuddering breath before finally falling still.

Tybalt is barely aware of Benvolio getting to his feet and walking back to find Romeo, as he pulls Mercutio into his lap, wiping impatiently at the silent tears streaming down his face, blurring his vision. Mercutio’s never been this still, not even when he was sleeping, and Tybalt almost screams.

He doesn’t though. He collects himself, as well as he can, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to Mercutio’s forehead before carefully setting his body down and getting to his feet, a new realization overtaking his thoughts.

There’s only one thing he can do to repent for Mercutio’s death. He’s a better swordfighter than Romeo, but Romeo doesn’t have to know that.

He’s saying something when Tybalt approaches, and Tybalt can tell that his tone is angry, his voice thick with tears, but the words all blur together in Tybalt’s ears until he hears Mercutio’s name.

“-Mercutio’s soul is but a little way above our heads, staying for thine to keep him company,” says Romeo, and Tybalt desperately wishes that that is true. “Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.”

Tybalt lets himself smile. He’ll go with Mercutio soon.

“Thou wretched boy that did consort him here,” he says, drawing his sword for the last time. “Shalt with him hence.”


End file.
